Sonia Naz case adjourned due to lawyers’ strike

LAHORE: The proceedings of the Sonia Naz rape case could not be held because the lawyers of the city were on a strike on Tuesday. The case will now be taken up on January 27.

On December 23, 2006 the rape victim could not be traced as an additional district and sessions judge Mohammad Yar Walana had started the process to declare the complainant Sonia Naz, a proclaimed offender and ordered issuing proclamation for her appearance.

The court had already directed the police to attach her property.

Earlier, the court had issued her arrest warrants, but she did not attend the proceedings. The judge had already recorded the statements of police officials who were witnesses.

According to the prosecution, police officers Khalid Abdullah and Jamshed Chishti, abducted Sonia Naz on May 3, 2005 from her home at Jouhar Town, gave her life threat and raped her.

The accused were arrested on October 19 after Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry, while taking suo moto notice of the case had directed the inspector-general of Punjab police to arrest the both police officers. On the orders of Supreme Court, Sattu Katla police station registered a Hudood case against them on October 12, 2005.

Separately, the hearing of a petition filed by the Sharif family against the wealth tax assessment could not be held on Tuesday, because justice Nasim Sikandar of the Lahore High Court was on leave.

A full bench of the Supreme Court had referred the matter to the LHC on July 10, in which former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his wife Kulsoom Nawaz, former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz had called into question the assessment of their wealth tax on companies’ shares.

The Lahore tax commissioner had asked Nawaz and others to pay over Rs 10 million wealth tax on the value of shares of their companies for 1994-98.

The Sharifs challenged the tax assessment in the apex court. On the petition, an SC bench had observed that the legal propriety demanded that new legal grounds in challenging the imposition of the wealth tax be first considered by the high court.